A Million Acres: Montana Writers Reflect on Land and Open Space

by Keir Graff (Editor), Alexis Bonogofsky (Photographer), Keir Graff (Introduction), Various Various (Contribution by)

Overview

Montana's stunning landscape shapes all who live here and all who visit.

In twenty powerful pieces of writing—essays, memoirs, short stories—the state's finest contemporary writers explore the plains, rivers, and mountains of Big Sky Country. They show us how natural beauty and hardship are two sides of the same coin, and how sometimes the only way to cure heartache is to visit the great outdoors.

From a hardscrabble upbringing to the pain of losing the family land, from death on a river to the awe of landing a big fish, from backcountry encounters with grizzly bears to an out-of-stater's happiness at making Montana her home, A Million Acres offers a wonderfully diverse range of experiences and perspectives. Framing these words are twenty-eight breathtaking photographs that render these open spaces in gorgeous color.

Come to Montana: in words, in pictures, in person. And see what makes the Last Best Place worth saving.

Contributors are:

Rick Bass

Maile Meloy

Carrie La Seur

Joe Wilkins

Jim Robbins

Gwen Florio

Jamie Harrison

Sterling HolyWhiteMountain

Janet Skeslien Charles

Maxim Loskutoff

Christine Carbo

James Grady

Alexis Bonogofsky

Russell Rowland

Caroline Patterson

Keir Graff

Eric Heidle

LeDoux Hansen

Antonia Malchik

Allen Morris Jones

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781606391211
Publisher:	Riverbend
Publication date:	10/15/2019
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	10.30(w) x 10.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Keir Graff is the author of six novels for adults, three novels for middle-graders, and short stories published in periodicals ranging from the Missoula Independent to the Chicago Reader. He is also the co-editor, with James Grady, of the anthology Montana Noir. Born and raised in Missoula, Graff now lives in Chicago, where he has worked in publishing for two decades. He returns to Montana every chance he gets.

Alexis Bonogofsky is a fourth-generation Montanan, goat and sheep rancher, and freelance writer and photographer who lives and works along the Yellowstone River in southeastern Montana where she grew up. Her writing and photography can be found on her website East of Billings and in various news outlets and magazines including Mountain Journal, Montana Quarterly, Farm 406, and High Desert Journal.

Since its establishment in 1978, TheMontana Land Reliance has partnered with Montana's landowners to permanently protect more than one million acres of agricultural land, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space in the state.

This book is a celebration of that achievement.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction, by Keir Graff

“Eleven Kinds of Sky,” by Joe Wilkins

“Breaking through the Fence,” by Russell Rowland

“The Soul of the Prairie,” by Jim Robbins

Excerpt from The Home Place, by Carrie La Seur

“Nothing More Than Everything,” by Antonia Malchik

“I'd Rather Give up Heaven than Montana,” by LeDoux Hansen

“The Last Drowning,” by Jamie Harrison

“Townsend Solitaire,” by Eric Heidle

“What You Do for Fun,” by Maile Meloy

“My Father's Cathedral,” by Janet Skeslien Charles

“Out There,” by James Grady

“A Fine Spring Day,” by Allen Morris Jones

“Finding Home,” by Gwen Florio

“Silence Itself,” by Sterling HolyWhiteMountain

“Surrender,” by Christine Carbo

“The Beast in Me,” by Maxim Loskutoff

“Fourteen Ways of Looking at the Clark Fork,” by Caroline Patterson

“The Ark of the Yaak,” by Rick Bass

“Water Levels,” by Keir Graff

Acknowledgments

List of Contributors

Location of photographs